Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1999
The early development of Muslim ideas of the holiness of Jerusalem has attracted considerable int... more The early development of Muslim ideas of the holiness of Jerusalem has attracted considerable interest in recent years. Livni-Kafri has argued that the earliest collections of the fadd'il of the city were already in existence in the third/ninth century and in 1979 Hasson published an edition of the earliest of these texts known to have survived, the early eleventh-century Fadd 'il al-Bayl al-Muqaddas of al-WasitT. Now Livne-Kafri has published the slightly later volume on the same theme by Ibn al-Murajja. The editor argues that this was composed in the 430s (mistakenly given as c. 1130-40 in the introduction: in fact the 430s correspond to A.D. 1038-48). Almost nothing seems to be known of the writer whose life was entirely ignored by the authors of later rijal books. He worked in the traditional forms of Muslim scholarship and was careful to quote his isndds. He begins with a discussion of the holy places of Jerusalem, especially the Dome of the Rock but also including smaller sanctuaries. As the full title suggests he also has short sections on the fadd'il of Syria and Hebron. The work is conventional and unexciting but it does provide further evidence for popular piety and the importance of Jerusalem as a holy city to Muslims in the pre-Crusader period. The edition is made from a single Tubingen MS dated 866/1462 and the editor has provided extensive notes and an index. Livne-Kafri and others, notably Hasson and Elad, have written extensively in this area recently, but the introduction, which is short and to the point, could perhaps have provided an opportunity for a fuller discussion of the background to the work and its place in the literature of Muslim Jerusalem.
Over and above their specific relation to Jerusalem, the Islamic traditions of Fada il al-Quds (P... more Over and above their specific relation to Jerusalem, the Islamic traditions of Fada il al-Quds (Praises of Jerusalem) are indicative of trends that accompanied the shaping of early Islam's value system. One of these, for example, is the adoption of literary traditions and concepts from the Jewish and Christian heritages. Some of the traditions reflect the special problematics involved when a new religion strives for legitimization vis-a-vis earlier religions while simultaneously emphasizing its uniqueness. These Muslim traditions, most of which are rather rare, on the one hand reflect elements characteristic of Christian polemics against Judaism, and on the other hand echo the Jews' yearning for the Temple and Jerusalem. At times they are connected with Jewish converts to Islam who could not make a clean break with their past. Elements of both tension and continuity in Islam's attitude toward Christianity and Judaism also emerge from these traditions regarding Jerusalem ...
Des ses origines, l'islam a ete oblige de se demarquer face aux religions qu'il reconnais... more Des ses origines, l'islam a ete oblige de se demarquer face aux religions qu'il reconnaissait comme fondees sur une revelation divine, principalement le judaisme et le christianisme. Les attitudes musulmanes a l'egard de Jerusalem, ville sainte pour le judaisme, le christianisme et l'islam, pourraient fournir un bon exemple de la reaction de l'islam face aux croyances et aux pratiques juives et chretiennes. Les attitudes, tendances, croyances et pratiques chretiennes refletees dans la litterature musulmane "a la louange de Jerusalem " ne sont pas uniformes dans leurs expressions et themes litteraires comme dans leurs sources non musulmanes. Neanmoins, jointes aux sources juives et a la contribution originale de l'islam, elles sont extremement importantes pour comprendre la maniere dont Jerusalem a ete sanctifiee par les musulmans. Le processus d'absorption de traditions chretiennes et juives dans le systeme de valeurs musulman se reflete bien da...
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2007
The most basic eschatological conceptions of Islam are found already in the Qur’ān. The expansion... more The most basic eschatological conceptions of Islam are found already in the Qur’ān. The expansion of the Qur’ānic picture in the ḥadīth includes new materials and conceptions and it reflects various religious, social and political processes in Muslim society in the first centuries to the hijra . This article offers explanations for some matters that seem to represent the migration of apocalyptic issues from non-Muslim sources into the ḥadīth . It seems that the interpretation of Muslim apocalyptic traditions often requires a search of the parallel Jewish and Christian literatures, and the issues chosen here might serve as a methodological model to demonstrate this. We see here (as in other studies) that the Muslim apocalyptic traditions and the Jewish and Christian apocalypses evince similarity in basic ideas, perceptions, attitudes, terminology, structures, and other features of the genre; still, the Arabic traditions already reflect the Islamic system of values; they were created against the background ...
At the beginning of the article I mentioned that although we are familiar with the different atti... more At the beginning of the article I mentioned that although we are familiar with the different attitudes and approaches concerning Jerusalem in early Islam, we are not always able to assess the balance of their relative strength and significance, or to find their internal proportion. I believe that the role of the Umayyads was decisive in combining many elements of the different attitudes. Through their building activities in Jerusalem (but also through literary forms and contents) they had great significance for the original Muslim contribution (e.g., al-Aqsa Mosque). They also relied greatly on Jewish and Christian patterns, and they adopted Byzantine models in addressing (and utilizing) religious matters. This shows also that the cultural background of the different religious communities did not differ that much, and there was mutual exposure to ideas and customs. Here I have presented some different perspectives and interpretations of the Arabic texts on Jerusalem, especially regarding the preservation ...
The Muezzins of Jerusalem and their Role in the Creation of Traditions in Praise of Jerusalem.
A... more The Muezzins of Jerusalem and their Role in the Creation of Traditions in Praise of Jerusalem. A methodological paper for high-schools.
The Origin of Jerusalem's Position as a Holy City in Islam. In Hebrew.
This is a preliminary publ... more The Origin of Jerusalem's Position as a Holy City in Islam. In Hebrew. This is a preliminary publication on that subject.
On Some Palestinian Muslim Apocalyptic Traditions
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew versio... more On Some Palestinian Muslim Apocalyptic Traditions
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew version (similar, but not identical) to my article: Apocalyptic Features in Some Palestinian Apocalyptic Traditions, The Journal of International SocialReseach, Vol. 1, Issue 5 (2008), pp. 463-479.
This is an unpublished Hebrew version of the article: A NOTE ON THE ENERGICUS IN A COPTIC-ARABIC... more This is an unpublished Hebrew version of the article: A NOTE ON THE ENERGICUS IN A COPTIC-ARABIC TRANSLATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Vol. 62, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 405-411.
A Tradition in Praise of Jerusalem - Khitām al-Qur'ān (The Ending of Reading the Koran), Maof ve-... more A Tradition in Praise of Jerusalem - Khitām al-Qur'ān (The Ending of Reading the Koran), Maof ve-Maase 3 (1998), pp. 105-115 (in Hebrew).
A Note on Coptic and Judaeo-Arabic on the Basis of a Bilingual Manuscript of the Pentateuch, Mass... more A Note on Coptic and Judaeo-Arabic on the Basis of a Bilingual Manuscript of the Pentateuch, Massorot 12 (2002), pp. 97-101 (in Hebrew).
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1999
The early development of Muslim ideas of the holiness of Jerusalem has attracted considerable int... more The early development of Muslim ideas of the holiness of Jerusalem has attracted considerable interest in recent years. Livni-Kafri has argued that the earliest collections of the fadd'il of the city were already in existence in the third/ninth century and in 1979 Hasson published an edition of the earliest of these texts known to have survived, the early eleventh-century Fadd 'il al-Bayl al-Muqaddas of al-WasitT. Now Livne-Kafri has published the slightly later volume on the same theme by Ibn al-Murajja. The editor argues that this was composed in the 430s (mistakenly given as c. 1130-40 in the introduction: in fact the 430s correspond to A.D. 1038-48). Almost nothing seems to be known of the writer whose life was entirely ignored by the authors of later rijal books. He worked in the traditional forms of Muslim scholarship and was careful to quote his isndds. He begins with a discussion of the holy places of Jerusalem, especially the Dome of the Rock but also including smaller sanctuaries. As the full title suggests he also has short sections on the fadd'il of Syria and Hebron. The work is conventional and unexciting but it does provide further evidence for popular piety and the importance of Jerusalem as a holy city to Muslims in the pre-Crusader period. The edition is made from a single Tubingen MS dated 866/1462 and the editor has provided extensive notes and an index. Livne-Kafri and others, notably Hasson and Elad, have written extensively in this area recently, but the introduction, which is short and to the point, could perhaps have provided an opportunity for a fuller discussion of the background to the work and its place in the literature of Muslim Jerusalem.
Over and above their specific relation to Jerusalem, the Islamic traditions of Fada il al-Quds (P... more Over and above their specific relation to Jerusalem, the Islamic traditions of Fada il al-Quds (Praises of Jerusalem) are indicative of trends that accompanied the shaping of early Islam's value system. One of these, for example, is the adoption of literary traditions and concepts from the Jewish and Christian heritages. Some of the traditions reflect the special problematics involved when a new religion strives for legitimization vis-a-vis earlier religions while simultaneously emphasizing its uniqueness. These Muslim traditions, most of which are rather rare, on the one hand reflect elements characteristic of Christian polemics against Judaism, and on the other hand echo the Jews' yearning for the Temple and Jerusalem. At times they are connected with Jewish converts to Islam who could not make a clean break with their past. Elements of both tension and continuity in Islam's attitude toward Christianity and Judaism also emerge from these traditions regarding Jerusalem ...
Des ses origines, l'islam a ete oblige de se demarquer face aux religions qu'il reconnais... more Des ses origines, l'islam a ete oblige de se demarquer face aux religions qu'il reconnaissait comme fondees sur une revelation divine, principalement le judaisme et le christianisme. Les attitudes musulmanes a l'egard de Jerusalem, ville sainte pour le judaisme, le christianisme et l'islam, pourraient fournir un bon exemple de la reaction de l'islam face aux croyances et aux pratiques juives et chretiennes. Les attitudes, tendances, croyances et pratiques chretiennes refletees dans la litterature musulmane "a la louange de Jerusalem " ne sont pas uniformes dans leurs expressions et themes litteraires comme dans leurs sources non musulmanes. Neanmoins, jointes aux sources juives et a la contribution originale de l'islam, elles sont extremement importantes pour comprendre la maniere dont Jerusalem a ete sanctifiee par les musulmans. Le processus d'absorption de traditions chretiennes et juives dans le systeme de valeurs musulman se reflete bien da...
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2007
The most basic eschatological conceptions of Islam are found already in the Qur’ān. The expansion... more The most basic eschatological conceptions of Islam are found already in the Qur’ān. The expansion of the Qur’ānic picture in the ḥadīth includes new materials and conceptions and it reflects various religious, social and political processes in Muslim society in the first centuries to the hijra . This article offers explanations for some matters that seem to represent the migration of apocalyptic issues from non-Muslim sources into the ḥadīth . It seems that the interpretation of Muslim apocalyptic traditions often requires a search of the parallel Jewish and Christian literatures, and the issues chosen here might serve as a methodological model to demonstrate this. We see here (as in other studies) that the Muslim apocalyptic traditions and the Jewish and Christian apocalypses evince similarity in basic ideas, perceptions, attitudes, terminology, structures, and other features of the genre; still, the Arabic traditions already reflect the Islamic system of values; they were created against the background ...
At the beginning of the article I mentioned that although we are familiar with the different atti... more At the beginning of the article I mentioned that although we are familiar with the different attitudes and approaches concerning Jerusalem in early Islam, we are not always able to assess the balance of their relative strength and significance, or to find their internal proportion. I believe that the role of the Umayyads was decisive in combining many elements of the different attitudes. Through their building activities in Jerusalem (but also through literary forms and contents) they had great significance for the original Muslim contribution (e.g., al-Aqsa Mosque). They also relied greatly on Jewish and Christian patterns, and they adopted Byzantine models in addressing (and utilizing) religious matters. This shows also that the cultural background of the different religious communities did not differ that much, and there was mutual exposure to ideas and customs. Here I have presented some different perspectives and interpretations of the Arabic texts on Jerusalem, especially regarding the preservation ...
The Muezzins of Jerusalem and their Role in the Creation of Traditions in Praise of Jerusalem.
A... more The Muezzins of Jerusalem and their Role in the Creation of Traditions in Praise of Jerusalem. A methodological paper for high-schools.
The Origin of Jerusalem's Position as a Holy City in Islam. In Hebrew.
This is a preliminary publ... more The Origin of Jerusalem's Position as a Holy City in Islam. In Hebrew. This is a preliminary publication on that subject.
On Some Palestinian Muslim Apocalyptic Traditions
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew versio... more On Some Palestinian Muslim Apocalyptic Traditions
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew version (similar, but not identical) to my article: Apocalyptic Features in Some Palestinian Apocalyptic Traditions, The Journal of International SocialReseach, Vol. 1, Issue 5 (2008), pp. 463-479.
This is an unpublished Hebrew version of the article: A NOTE ON THE ENERGICUS IN A COPTIC-ARABIC... more This is an unpublished Hebrew version of the article: A NOTE ON THE ENERGICUS IN A COPTIC-ARABIC TRANSLATION OF THE PENTATEUCH. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Vol. 62, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 405-411.
A Tradition in Praise of Jerusalem - Khitām al-Qur'ān (The Ending of Reading the Koran), Maof ve-... more A Tradition in Praise of Jerusalem - Khitām al-Qur'ān (The Ending of Reading the Koran), Maof ve-Maase 3 (1998), pp. 105-115 (in Hebrew).
A Note on Coptic and Judaeo-Arabic on the Basis of a Bilingual Manuscript of the Pentateuch, Mass... more A Note on Coptic and Judaeo-Arabic on the Basis of a Bilingual Manuscript of the Pentateuch, Massorot 12 (2002), pp. 97-101 (in Hebrew).
During the last years I published several studies on the language contact between Coptic and Arab... more During the last years I published several studies on the language contact between Coptic and Arabic. The basic corpus for my studies are the bilingual (Coptic and Arabic) versions of the Pentateuch in Manuscript Paris BN copte 1 (Rhode, 1921, pp. 46-52). Focus was on the Arabic version.1 Along the study-process I did not always have work-models to follow and I had to find my own way. I would like to present here different aspects of the study-process, some of which may be helpful to future scholars in that field. Different additional studies are needed, because at the present stage it is not possible to provide a comprehensive philological and linguistic analysis of the Arabic version.
Department of Arabic Language and Literature
Areas of research: Jerusalem in early Islam, early ... more Department of Arabic Language and Literature
Areas of research: Jerusalem in early Islam, early Muslimasceticism, Muslim apocalyptic, Jewish Arabic, language contact between Arabic and Coptic, editing ancient manuscripts in Arabic
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Papers by Ofer Livne-Kafri
A methodological paper for high-schools.
This is a preliminary publication on that subject.
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew version (similar, but not identical) to my article: Apocalyptic Features in Some Palestinian Apocalyptic Traditions, The Journal of International SocialReseach, Vol. 1, Issue 5 (2008), pp. 463-479.
Vol. 62, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 405-411.
A methodological paper for high-schools.
This is a preliminary publication on that subject.
A unpublished article. This is a Hebrew version (similar, but not identical) to my article: Apocalyptic Features in Some Palestinian Apocalyptic Traditions, The Journal of International SocialReseach, Vol. 1, Issue 5 (2008), pp. 463-479.
Vol. 62, No. 4 (December 2009), pp. 405-411.
Areas of research: Jerusalem in early Islam, early Muslimasceticism, Muslim apocalyptic, Jewish Arabic, language contact between Arabic and Coptic, editing ancient manuscripts in Arabic